A bicyclist rides past a new port-a-potty along Boulder Creek on Friday. The city has placed four portable toilets in areas around the creek in a new attempt to cut down on human waste in areas frequented by the homeless. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

Under pressure to address the abundance of human waste and trash along Boulder Creek downtown, the city is installing temporary bathrooms, adding overtime police patrols and performing more frequent sweeps of homeless encampments.

In a memo sent Thursday to the City Council, City Manager Jane Brautigam, police Chief Greg Testa and other Boulder staff members described the various measures Boulder is taking now — and may take in the future — in response to a recent rise in citizen complaints concerning homeless activity by the creek and in the Civic Area.

Boulder was set to add four portable units today — one at the western edge of the Boulder Creek Path, one near the Boulder County Justice Center and two in the Civic Area.

They’ll stand for 29 days, which the city says is the maximum allowable pilot period given that they’ll be in a high flood hazard area. The pilot will cost an estimated $3,700, and the city will re-evaluate its options after observing potential success and failures during the trial period.

During discussions in February specifically about the problem of human waste, council members directed city staff to consider a range of options for longer-term solutions, including temporary restroom trailers, mobile units and permanent facilities.

It was decided then that portable toilets would not be used. Brautigam broke a 4-4 council vote on that matter — Councilwoman Jan Burton was absent — and said emphatically that “port-a-potties are not a solution.”

She joked that portable toilets were so far out of the question that she would not even speak the term “port-a-potty.”

Some homeless advocates criticized the vote and Brautigam’s comments, arguing that portable units provide an immediate and inexpensive stopgap above which city government should not fancy itself.

Asked why Boulder is adding portable toilets after the council, with Brautigam’s tiebreaker, did not support them in February, Alison Rhodes, district services manager for Parks and Recreation, said, “It’s not a desired alternative; it’s just an effort to be solution-oriented.

“While port-a-potties are no one’s longer-term interest, can they help meet a short-term need?That’s our hope,” she added.

The memo to council also stated that city staff’s request for proposals from providers of long-term bathroom solutions resulted in just one response. So, the city is pursuing the mobile restroom option, which Denver deploys at a rate of about $16,000 per month.

“Staff is also exploring the Portland Loo,” the memo also said, “a flush toilet kiosk that can be located on public sidewalks or other hard surfaces.”

But frustration is high with trash in general, and the memo released Thursday describes a number of efforts to clean up the area.

City staffers are proposing spending $150,000 in 2017 for weekly sweeps of encampments along “high volume areas” and biweekly sweeps in lesser-used spots.

Since Feb. 4, the city says, Boulder police have been providing overtime patrols in the Civic Area, along the creek path, on the Pearl Street Mall and in the University Hill business district. All have high concentrations of homeless people.

The homeless are legally prohibited from camping within city limits, and the increase in police presence and sweeps would seem to indicate that sleeping and maintaining possessions outside will now be more difficult for those in violation of the camping ban.

For what the memo calls “increased patrol and enforcement” by the police, the city will pay an estimated $315,840 in 2017.

Boulder will also spend an estimated $10,000 this year on replacing and increasing signage along the creek path and in areas with encampments. The city says it has placed 50 signs concerning park hours and closure periods, the smoking and glass-container ban in parks and “other compliance-related issues facilitating enforcement.”

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This article is amazing in that it does NOT address getting rid of the worst-behaved transients from all across America — the very people who are causing most of the problems citizens blame on the homeless in general. As I’ve pointed out many times: The bad actors are no more than 20% of all the homeless here in Boulder, and the other 80% of us are not only disgusted by them as much as anybody else, we’re most frequently the victims of the crimes committed by these sociopaths (crimes including theft, assault, rape, and homicide).

If the BUMS from outside of Boulder County, CO are allowed to hang around, I predict the following consequences as they relate to additional port-a-potties:

1) Peeing and pooping in and around Boulder Creek will continue, because this is how the BUMS give the finger to society;

2) BUMS will sleep in the port-a-potties both night and day, locking themselves inside to do so;

3) Guzzling rotgut vodka and smoking dope will occur in the port-a-potties as often as peeing and pooping;

4) Remember the Boulder “potty peeper” from a few years ago? There is at least one other pervert with the same psychiatric disorder who might be lurking in the port-a-potties to get his jollies (he is notable for being the homeless candidate for city council in 2011, sponsored by then-Carriage House);

5) Vandalism to the port-a-potties is a sure thing, probably to the point of making them unusable. They could even be torched like our local forests!

C’mon, Boulder City Council — please address the REAL ISSUE and let our police officers move the troublemakers on down the road . . .

On April 17, law enforcement officials investigate the scene of a triple homicide at 800 Divide View Drive in Boulder County. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

Boulder County Sheriff’s Office investigators announced on Thursday afternoon that they removed more than 100 marijuana plants from the Coal Creek Canyon home where three people were found dead earlier this month.

Cmdr. Mike Wagner said on Thursday that the grow inside the home was illegal.

Investigators said in a news release that they are interviewing witnesses and “persons of interest” in and out of Colorado and are continuing to determine whether the marijuana grow played a role in the deaths of Wallace White, 54, Kelly Sloat-White, 56, and Emory Fraker, 39.

Colorado Secretary of State’s Office records show Sloat-White had applied for a business name called “420 Pharms LLC” in 2009, but that business was declared delinquent July 1, 2011.

Following the discovery of the bodies, investigators called in a hazardous materials team after they discovered evidence of drug activity inside the home. Custody of the home was turnedover to family members on Wednesday after investigators wrapped up at the crime scene.

The bodies were discovered in a home on the 800 block of Divide View Drive on April 15 after sheriff’s deputies responded to conduct a welfare check on a resident who had not been seen in several days.

Investigators say the home was specifically targeted and said on the day of the discovery that the three people appeared to have trauma, but they have yet to publicly state the nature of the trauma.

Seems to me there’s even more violence associated with drugs now than before the “legalization” of marijuana in a few states (including Colorado, of course). Certainly, armed robbers who will murder their victims can now target dispensaries and recreational pot shops, in addition to illegal grow operations like the one in this case.

I don’t recall any of this as being part of all the promises made to the public by proponents of “legal” marijuana . . .

Organizers, and too many participants, of Denver’s 4/20 cannabis celebration last week made a mess of things in more ways than one. As the eyes of the world, and of the Trump administration, potentially focused on our fair city, the high-holiday bacchanal got out of hand.

Impatient revelers crashed fences, broke reasonable rules about public consumption and once again went out of their way to personify as many negative stereotypes about marijuana as they could manage.

The list of regrettable and gross misdeeds includes leaving Civic Center — Denver’s front lawn — something of a trash heap for workers, residents and visitors to consider as thanks for our awfully open-minded legal-cannabis system.

“Our parks and public spaces are held in the public trust,” the mayor said in a press conference inside Civic Center. “When you leave our parks trashed, you violate the public trust.”

Hancock is right to order a review of the breakdown so that future 4/20 festivals, and other gatherings, don’t fall into this kind of debauchery.

While organizers can argue they met their deadline in cleaning up the trash, the carefully parsed excuse hardly registers in the court of public opinion. More worrisome were the pathetic lines caused by insufficiently equipped security staff that led to mass fence-crashing. The need for adequate public safety in these turbulent times requires no explanation.

With the trash, the security breaches and the irreverence, the implicit message from the event was that civic concerns just didn’t matter.

It’s past time 4/20 grew up. We get it the festival’s roots grow from the bad old days, when pot users were routinely sent off to jail and prison. Pre-legalization rallies served as non-violent civil disobedience that sought to shine a light on the issue. And certainly, following legalization here, we get it that revelers would want to get their freak on in celebration. No doubt, fears of a crackdown from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions contributed to this season’s baser instincts.

But times have changed and the festival ought to evolve with them. It has now been more than three years since legal recreational pot businesses opened their doors in Colorado. Residents and elected officials here have been more than kind to the experiment. Just this week, for example, the City Council granted pot businesses the right to stay open later than 7 p.m., effective May 1. Voters last year passed an initiative that allows some businesses to offer consumption.

Another consideration: This past festival ended up being a stick in the eye to the multitude of responsible cannabis business owners and ganjapreneurs who have gone to great lengths to keep up a respectable image.

For those who think there is something magical about smoking up publicly at 4:20 p.m. on April 20, we say: Get over yourself. Think back to the first days of legal sales. Cameras from all overthe world waited in vain to see Denver and Colorado collapse into exactly the kind of nonsense the just-passed 4/20 celebration gave us.

It’s legal already. Shoving your bad behavior in the face of a tolerant community isn’t just breathtakingly foolish, but also totally uncool.

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“Marijuana makes people stupid,” says Mitt Romney. And the Homeless Philosopher says that the more you smoke the more impaired your brain will become . . .

They’re NOT rocket scientists, folks. More like the cannabis addicts you’ll find in homeless shelters, especially here in Colorado.

Assuming I didn’t inadvertently run over the 300-word limit for a letter-to-editor, this should appear on the DC’s website and in print this weekend:

Dear Editor,

In response to Susan Stephens and others here in Boulder who will mourn the loss of Boulder Outreach for Homeless Overflow and Bridge House’s Day Shelter and Resource Center (all will close on May 1st, as will the emergency overnight dorms at Boulder Shelter for the Homeless), let me speak as a homeless man who has lived in Boulder, CO since early 2008: I couldn’t care less! I stopped going to Carriage House in early 2009, have never been to the renamed Bridge House, have never stayed overnight at BOHO, and since early 2010 only visit Boulder Shelter for the Homeless in the mornings for a shower (which I could take at the North Boulder Rec Center if BSH were to also close).

Although BOHO and Carriage House / Bridge House may have been started with the best of intentions, in the past couple of years they have become little more than magnets for the worst-behaved transients from all across America.

Two things must happen: 1) Boulder City Council must commit itself to taking a more hands-on approach to the issue of homelessness by heeding the concerns of the majority of Boulderites who oppose the transient migration to our city; and 2) Local nonprofits must prioritize homeless shelter / services for those in need who are from Boulder County (requiring a valid photo ID with a local address and proof of at least one year’s residency would be a great start). Any nonprofit which refuses to get on board should have all funding from city taxpayers cut off.

1) Only 6 nights remaining for the worst-behaved transients in the emergency overnight dorms at Boulder Shelter for the Homeless — and with any luck law enforcement officers will make sure starting May 1st that they aren’t camping out in people’s yards without permission, in public parks where camping is banned, or anywhere else that is detrimental to good order and public health.

2) The further adventures of registered sex offender Leo Scott, as he posted on the Facebook page of Boulder Rights Watch:

I decided to come to california to check it out what he told me about in my earlier post and it is true.I DECIDED TO GO TO SAN MATEO. I got here filed for benefits and this is what they gave me.80 cash179 food stamps275 in Safeway Checks for any personal stuff or a total of 534. Much more then colorado. And they are looking at getting me a place and pay my rent. WE IS BOULDER SO RICH AND SNOBBY.

MY CASEWORKER ASKED ME WHAT THEY GIVE THERE AND I TOLD HIM AND HE SAID

SOUNDS LIKE Boulder people are HEARTLESS and I agree as California believes all people are equal including the homeless. I will add more post from there sites later.

As far as I know, Leo is an able-bodied perv who apparently doesn’t want to apply at any temporary employment agency . . . I hope he doesn’t forget to register as a sex offender out there in California:

Leo Gerald Scott

3) There should be more definitive info about Boulder Outreach for Homeless Overflow crashing and burning very soon. If you’re a homeless BOHO client and want to blame someone for the churches becoming fed up with the drinking, drugging, fornicating, and vandalism that has occurred for years on their property, LOOK IN THE MIRROR. Once again, you pickled idjits have shot yourselves in the foot — with an assist from the apologists / enablers here in Boulder.

4) I had a couple of slices of still-warm pizza from King Soopers, along with my usual Brown Cow brand strawberry yogurt and a pint of orange juice, as I sat here at the computer in our lovely Main Library at 1001 Arapahoe. Surrounded by Froot Loops, of course.

5) After suffering the theft of $350 from my locker at BSH (no doubt in my mind the perp was a staff member), I’ve managed to again save $275 to this point, in addition to spending about $15 per day on necessities. The money will be kept by a friend in Longmont, CO. Thanks to all who have donated to the Homeless Philosopher:

What is the purpose of having an ordinance to protect this diminishing keystone species if there is no ability to enforce it effectively, and no will to hold the offender accountable?

Well, Paula, prairie dogs are NOT diminishing in Boulder County, CO — which you’d see for yourself if you would only open your eyes. I suggest you take a drive along the Diagonal Highway between Boulder and neighboring Longmont; or, you might check out the area surrounding the old Armory site in north Boulder, for the radius of a few blocks. The plague-carrying varmints are spreading almost as fast as a BUM CAMPFIRE in the local forests.

No predator species today is dependent on prairie dogs, if any ever were, and it’s loss of suitable habitat which threatens foxes, coyotes, hawks, etc. The prairie dog won’t mind burrowing in your front yard, if you permit it. How are we to control its numbers, if not by our own devices?

I can attest to the fact that prairie dogs — which were never around my campsite in north Boulder until a couple of years ago — are now just as numerous as the rabbits (a species I admire and enjoy watching).